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Frequent Fliers: Check the fine print

19

May

Christopher Elliott, Special for USA TODAY
Airline frequent-flier programs may be useless, but some are more useless than others.
That's the takeaway from a new survey by website MileCards.com, which shared its results with me even though I'm America's No. 1 loyalty-program critic. What were they thinking?
The research probably won't change your mind about the folly of frequent-flier programs, but it is useful in one respect: It separates the loyalty schemes in which you can't possibly win from the ones that aren't half bad.
MileCards crunched nine months of data for five programs representing 90% of U.S. frequent-flier membership, analyzing redemption rates in economy class...